Our Research & Offerings on President Barack Obama

Tuesday, our president came to us live from the Treasury Department. Allegedly, the purpose was to update Americans on the horrific Islamist terrorist attack at an LGBT club in Florida, as well as offer an update in the war against ISIS. But Obama reserved the second half of the speech for a vicious partisan diatribe. It would be as if FDR, partway through his “Day of…

You know gender-identity issues are getting lots of attention when it prompts one gay-rights activist to start a campaign called "Drop the T." Its goal: to kick transgender out of the standard LGBT acronym for being "ultimately regressive and actually hostile to the goals of women and gay men."
Whatever happens within the LGBT community, one thing is clear: Government…

In 2009, President Obama articulated his dream for a world free of nuclear weapons. But reality intruded on his utopian vision that day when North Korea launched a long-range missile designed to target the United States with nuclear weapons. Since then, Pyongyang has continued to augment its nuclear arsenal.
As the end of his presidency approaches, Obama seeks to…

On Friday, President Barack Obama will become the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima. His spokesmen have promised that he won’t apologize for the U.S. use of atomic bombs to end the Second World War. But Hiroshima’s meaning is more powerful than any words he may utter.
Obama’s been contemplating a visit to Hiroshima for years. I first heard rumors of it in…

In a sense, there was no news in the recent New York Times magazine exposé of Obama foreign policy guru Ben Rhodes. It reveals that President Obama’s inner circle lacks foreign experience, is insufferably condescending, and lies to the nation. All of this we knew, so why all the fuss?
It is important for the historical record, however, that the Rhodes’s profile further…

This Friday is “Earth Day” and by all indications the Obama administration intends to celebrate it by traveling to the United Nations in New York and signing the Paris Agreement on climate change. Despite the pomp and circumstance of a U.N. Headquarters signing ceremony, President Obama claims that the Paris Agreement is not a treaty. Since he claims it is not a treaty,…

He’d explained, calmly, that he was on the right side of history and they weren’t. He’d noted that the only alternative to doing what he wanted was doing the wrong thing, or nothing at all.
And he’d pointed out that, when people disagreed with him, it was because of pressure from donors, or because they couldn’t tell fantasy from reality, or were like Iranian religious…

President Barack Obama’s speech in Cuba last week is one of the best he’s made in his seven years in office. Unfortunately, he’s got a terrible record of following through on his words.
I don’t think Obama should have gone to Cuba. The U.S. has nothing to gain from an opening to the Castro regime: this isn’t Nixon’s trip to China at the height of the Cold War.
Most…

It’s been over a year since the United States “normalized” relations with Cuba, making concessions that, supposedly, would encourage the island nation to become freer and more open. In light of President Obama’s visit, however, it’s clear that this policy has proven to be a failure.
You would think that only by making concrete improvements in the lives of ordinary Cubans…

Dakota Wood is The Heritage Foundation's senior research fellow for defense programs. Wood, who spent two decades in the U.S. Marine Corps, spoke to the Trib regarding the Pentagon recently ordering commanders to prioritize climate change in military actions.
Q: What prompted this directive?
A: It's important to keep in mind that senior civilian officials are political…

The election results were a crushing political blow for the Obama administration, giving Republicans firm control of both houses of Congress for the final two years of his term. But this in no way signals the end of the president's policy agenda. It simply shifts the action to regulatory agencies.
In the days since the vote, this has already begun. Obama is moving…

Secretary of State John Kerry recently floated a mind-boggling idea: To help turn back ISIS, the Islamic terrorist group that has seized control of more than a third of Iraq, the U.S. could enter a cooperative arrangement with the mullahs of Iran.
Yes, the administration still clings to the notion that it can advance American interests by cutting a deal with Tehran. No…

The rush by Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) to push through President Obama’s latest judicial nominees before their records can be thoroughly reviewed is underway. On June 4, while announcing his nomination of three more judges to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, President Obama repeated what has become a Democratic mantra: Republican senators are…

The “knock out game,” where defenseless people are brutally and randomly attacked, is a shocker. It’s hard to imagine why teenagers, apparently bored out of their minds, would get a thrill out of beating up an old man or woman.
We are all outraged. But we are also divided on the causes. Some charge racism. Others cry a sick culture. Still others blame rising inequality…

Afghans went to the polls Saturday, but results won’t be in for at least another two weeks. If none of the candidates wins a majority of votes (the most likely scenario), a run-off election will have to be held probably in late May or early June.
The Taliban did their best to deter voting and undermine the electoral process in Afghanistan.
In the weeks running up to…

George Kennan was the State Department's top hand on Moscow. As the U.S.-Soviet alliance unraveled after World War II, no one seemed to understand the Kremlin better than Kennan.
One of his most insightful observations was cautionary: Do not think about the standoff with the Soviet Union as principally a military confrontation.
"[Y]ou didn't always have to occupy…

Perhaps the biggest problem with the reaction of President Obama and his attorney general, Eric Holder, to the grand jury verdict in Ferguson is their non-support for the difficult work of the grand jury. That and their support for the mistaken proposition that the administration of justice is unfair, biased, and prejudiced towards “communities of color” undermine our…

Back in 2009, it seemed that all the White House had to do to demonstrate wisdom was to declare that the solution—whatever the problem—was "Anything But Bush" (ABB). Those were heady days for the Obama administration.
How to deal with China? The ABB solution was the G-2, or Group of Two. It was quite the hot idea—before it flamed out.
The logic behind the G-2 was pretty…

President Obama looks set to embark on a power play that will usurp the legislative power of Congress. The lives of untold thousands rest on that decision as well; if he opts to decree amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants already in this country, it will encourage millions more to risk a treacherous, unlawful journey across our borders for the same…

A FEW months ago, I compared President Obama to Richard Nixon: both big spenders, both seeking to disengage abroad, and both personally prickly. I said nothing about Watergate. Now Obama, like Nixon, is enmeshed in scandals that began before his re-election but only grabbed public notice after it.
And what a set of scandals they are. The administration has seized the…

On Friday, President Barack Obama will become the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima. His spokesmen have promised that he won’t apologize for the U.S. use of atomic bombs to end the Second World War. But Hiroshima’s meaning is more powerful than any words he may utter.
Obama’s been contemplating a visit to Hiroshima for years. I first heard rumors of it in…

In a sense, there was no news in the recent New York Times magazine exposé of Obama foreign policy guru Ben Rhodes. It reveals that President Obama’s inner circle lacks foreign experience, is insufferably condescending, and lies to the nation. All of this we knew, so why all the fuss?
It is important for the historical record, however, that the Rhodes’s profile further…

President Obama will soon make yet another “major jobs speech.” Small wonder—the Department of Labor announced last Friday that the economy created a net of zero new jobs in August following two months of near-zero growth. Two years after the President signed his first major jobs bill into law, the unemployment rate continues to hover at 9.1 percent.
Unfortunately,…

Abstract:
Following a record year of rulemaking, the Obama Administration is continuing to unleash more costly red tape. In the first six months of the 2011 fiscal year, 15 major regulations were issued, with annual costs exceeding $5.8 billion and one-time implementation costs approaching $6.5 billion. No major rulemaking actions were taken to reduce regulatory…

During his state visit to the United Kingdom on May 24–26, President Barack Obama should speak clearly to Prime Minister David Cameron about the serious damage that the latest round of British defense cuts is doing to Britain’s armed forces. The Special Relationship between the U.S. and Great Britain rests in part on the desire of each nation to play a leading role in the…

Abstract: The summit meeting in May between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron comes at an important moment in the Special Relationship between the United States and Great Britain. The two powers lead NATO, which has again proved that it is the only European and Atlantic institution capable of creating consensus and responding in a crisis. However,…

President Obama’s visit to El Salvador on March 22 concludes his first presidential trip to South and Central America. In El Salvador, he will meet with leftist President Mauricio Funes, visit the tomb of Archbishop Romero, and tour a Mayan ruin. The visit to El Salvador is designed to shore up relations with a country highly representative of the challenges and dilemmas…

When Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon meets President Obama in Washington on March 3, the atmosphere will be tense. Even White House media management cannot camouflage gathering tensions in the U.S.–Mexican relationship.
Mexico’s bloody battle with drug cartels and criminal violence dominates media headlines and fuels growing uncertainty about Mexico’s future…

Any Japanese hopes that hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit would highlight Tokyo’s regional leadership abilities or reverse Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s plummeting approval ratings have been dashed. Instead, the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) is buffeted by escalating domestic criticism for its timorous foreign policies, which encouraged…

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